Room of the Day: Parisian Pop Lifts a San Francisco Living Room
Turning bedsheets into curtains and drawing on the furniture with a pen are a couple of the decorating tricks used in this living room
Bryan Anthony
December 9, 2015
Beverly and Charles Held have always enjoyed bold and enterprising designs. They have even collected some quality pieces of midcentury furniture along the way. But when it came to their home’s own interior, they had always played it safe. Then their two talented children got a hold of their living room, and safe went right out the window.
Living Room at a Glance
Who lives here: Beverly and Charles Held
Location: San Francisco
Size: About 500 square feet (46.5 square meters)
Designer: Ginevra Held Interior Design
Sometimes it takes a little coaxing from your children to pull the trigger on a living room transformation, but when one child is an interior designer and the other is an artist, it’s easier to take the plunge. “My mom was all for it and was really excited to be involved in the process. My dad just kind of stayed out of the way,” designer Ginevra Held says with a laugh.
Who lives here: Beverly and Charles Held
Location: San Francisco
Size: About 500 square feet (46.5 square meters)
Designer: Ginevra Held Interior Design
Sometimes it takes a little coaxing from your children to pull the trigger on a living room transformation, but when one child is an interior designer and the other is an artist, it’s easier to take the plunge. “My mom was all for it and was really excited to be involved in the process. My dad just kind of stayed out of the way,” designer Ginevra Held says with a laugh.
BEFORE: The Helds bought their home in San Francisco’s Richmond neighborhood about eight years ago. The living room is a large, open space that includes a wood-burning fireplace. “My parents had collected some nice furniture pieces over the years, like a Le Corbusier chaise and a Saarinen dining table, but the living room never had a focus,” Ginevra says.
AFTER: Ginevra says her mother is an avowed Francophile, so she took design inspiration from the bold decor commonly found in Parisian restaurants and boutique hotels. She selected a color palette of black, white and yellow.
Black and white striped fabric was used to create window curtains and a wall covering. Nicolas Held, an artist and Ginevra’s brother, painted the mural above the fireplace mantel and used a black fabric pen to draw designs on the antique ottoman and the back of the Louis XV chair. The drawings on these pieces were inspired by the graphic works of Keith Haring. A drop cloth canvas was used to create a stylish area rug inspired by a couture sweatshirt by Balmain.
Ottoman: One Kings Lane; Louis VX chair: Restoration Hardware
Black and white striped fabric was used to create window curtains and a wall covering. Nicolas Held, an artist and Ginevra’s brother, painted the mural above the fireplace mantel and used a black fabric pen to draw designs on the antique ottoman and the back of the Louis XV chair. The drawings on these pieces were inspired by the graphic works of Keith Haring. A drop cloth canvas was used to create a stylish area rug inspired by a couture sweatshirt by Balmain.
Ottoman: One Kings Lane; Louis VX chair: Restoration Hardware
BEFORE: The living room previously featured honey-colored wood on the window trim, molding and mantel. All of it was painted either white or black in the redesign.
AFTER: A vibrant yellow provides a striking accent color in the otherwise black and white palette. Ginevra painted the wood trim of the Louis XV chair and purposely splattered a Venus de Milo statue in the same canary-hued paint.
Chaise: Le Corbusier LC4, Cassina
Chaise: Le Corbusier LC4, Cassina
A custom bookcase was added to one wall to hold the Helds’ books and collectibles. The top half of the bookcase interior is painted black, and the bottom half is painted white. “Adding that stark contrast of black against white wherever possible keeps a consistency throughout the room,” Ginevra says.
BEFORE: A Saarinen Tulip dining chair surrounded by four red leather chairs comprised a corner of the previous living room used as an informal dining space.
Chairs: Lea 2083/84, Zanotta
Chairs: Lea 2083/84, Zanotta
AFTER: To make the dining area feel distinct from the rest of the room, Ginevra used white bedsheets from Ikea, this time in white, to create a window and wall treatment. Trompe l’oeil (French for “deceives the eye”) wallpaper by Maison Martin Margiela creates the illusion of a door between the wall treatments.
Browse more Rooms of the Day
Browse more Rooms of the Day
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The redecorated room is a big improvement over the original living room, but it's visually very busy. They've also turned the focus to the windows and away from the fireplace, which the parents had previously enjoyed judging by the soot stains. Now the stains are painted over, but the fireplace is apparently no longer used, which is a shame. It seems more like a room to enjoy in the morning rather than being restful at night after a busy day at work.
A little over the top for me, but I love it!